Processors

Samsung will be fined for belatedly reporting a fatal hydrofluoric gas leak at one of its Korean facilities to authorities, according to a new report.

The gas leak reportedly occurred sometime on Sunday (the exact timeline isn't clear, due to conflicting reports out of Korea) at a Samsung semiconductor facility south of Seoul. Several hours later, Samsung contacted crew members from a maintenance company to clean up the leak. Five crew members arrived on the scene and started to clean up the spill. However, one of the individuals, who was reportedly not wearing a full hazmat suit, died due … Read more

A worker at a Samsung facility in Korea has died after an incident at one of its semiconductor facilities.

According to Korean news service Yonhap, the incident began around 11 p.m. local time last night when a 132-gallon tank of hydrofluoric acid started leaking at the company's facility. At 5 a.m. this morning, 2.6 gallons leaked in gas form. Samsung contacted STI Service, a maintenance company, to fix the leak. One person died from exposure to the acid, while four others were hospitalized.

Yonhap today claims to have spoken to a Samsung spokesperson, who said that … Read more

Intel has the go-ahead to construct a $4 billion plant in Ireland where it will design the next generation of 14 nanometer processors.

The chip giant received the OK from Ireland's lead planning agency, according to Ireland-based tech news site Silicon Republic. With that approval a done deal, the project just needs authorization from Intel's board to move forward.

Construction is expected to take two years and could create 3,500 construction jobs and 800 full-time permanent positions. The plant will be located at Intel's campus in Leixlip, County Kildare, where 4,000 people already work, Silicon … Read more

Safaricom today announced a smartphone based an Intel design -- part of the chipmaker's effort to enter the global low-cost phone market.

The Yolo smartphone is aimed "cost-conscious...first-time buyers" in Kenya, said Intel, which is responsible for both the core electronics and phone's design.

That design was announced at CES 2013.

Inside the 3.5-inch Yolo is an Intel Atom Z2420 processor that can run at speeds up to 1.2 GHz and Intel's XMM 6265 modem with HSPA+ support for global roaming.

Yolo will be sold in Safaricom shops in Kenya at an … Read more

The tech research firm, which evaluated the total available market for chip purchases, found Samsung bought 8 percent, or $23.9 billion, of all chips this year. That's up 29 percent from the previous year and reflects Samsung's soaring mobile device sales.

Intel will get out of the traditional desktop motherboard business, as it focuses its resources on mobile products.

"We disclosed internally today that Intel's Desktop Motherboard Business will begin slowly ramping down over the course of the next three years," Intel said in a note to journalists today.

What does that mean exactly? Think of the PC tower systems that used to populate the Best Buys of the world. That's what Intel is winding down as it devotes more resources to ultrabooks, tablets, and phones.

"The internal talent and experience of twenty years in the … Read more

Move over, mobile payments. NFC is finding other ways to make itself useful.

In fact, paying for items with one's phone seems to be the least common use for the close-range connectivity technology right now, at least based on gadgets unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show. Rather, essentially all products using NFC shown at the recent confab employed the technology in one of two ways: To set up a sort of digital handshake between a mobile device and another gadget or as a way to share information between products with just a tap.

PC makers take note. Microsoft is pioneering the next PC.

Surface Pro makes a good case as the template for the new PC for a couple of simple reasons: Microsoft put the device's electronics behind the glass, not under the keyboard, and the device uses a real processor.

Let's address the electronics first. Most of the newfangled laptops I saw at CES were convertibles. That is, the displays are not detachable because the core electronics are under the keyboard, just like your father's laptop.

And most of them were unimpressive. The mechanics necessary to flip and/or … Read more

Intel is betting a chunk of its PC future on so-called convertibles. So far, financial analysts aren't convinced these are designs that will win the day.

Newfangled laptops that perform mechanical acrobatics to convert to tablet mode, like Lenovo's Yoga convertible and Dell's XPS 12, aren't impressive enough yet to revive PC-market doldrums, according to a growing chorus of financial analysts who follow Intel.

On Thursday, Intel CEO Paul Otellini, speaking during an earnings conference call, tried to depict convertible PC designs as the best of both worlds: the laptop and the tablet. In essence, he … Read more